OSAS And 1 Cor. 6:9-10

Q

Your website and the answers have been a blessing. I do have 1 question.

“1Co 6:9 Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind,
1Co 6:10 Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God. ”

That verse says that I shall not inherit the kingdom of God if I do any of those things. What happens to OSAS if I steal something and die before I confess?

A

The summary statement of the passage is “The unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God.” The rest of verses 9-10 describe types of unrighteous people.

Look at Romans 3:21-22,

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known, to which the Law and the Prophets testify. This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

And 2 Cor. 5:21

God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

We are made righteous because of our faith, as righteous as God is. That’s because when Jesus went to the cross He took every sin of our lives, past present and future, and paid the penalty for all of them (Col. 2:13-15). We are no longer considered by God to be unrighteous, and there is no sin we can commit to make us so, because Jesus has already made atonement for every sin of our life.

Confessing our sins, as required by 1 John 1:9, is not for the purpose of maintaining our salvation, which affects our eternal life. It’s to maintain our fellowship with God, which affects our earthly life. Otherwise even an angry or resentful thought (which are also sins) conceived at the moment of death, could deprive us of our salvation just as surely as if we’d committed a physical act of sin.

Ephesians 1:13-14 explain that our inheritance is guaranteed the moment we place our faith in the Lord. And the Holy Spirit is sealed within us at that point as a deposit. The only way God could do this is if all the sins of our remaining life had been paid for in advance.